


For the Sake of Sunlight

by WhyNotFly



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Season two lunch dates, and I don't know how love works, discussions of soulmates, just a lil drabble I whipped up in an hour but I liked it, martin might be aromantic unintentionally bcuz I am
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-19
Updated: 2020-09-19
Packaged: 2021-03-07 23:33:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,029
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26546068
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WhyNotFly/pseuds/WhyNotFly
Summary: Martin does everything he can to lure Jon out of the Archives and get him some fresh air and sunlight.  If that means spending some time having lunch with him, it's a sacrifice he's more than happy to make.
Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist
Comments: 11
Kudos: 130





	For the Sake of Sunlight

“Do you believe in soulmates?” 

Martin chokes on the crumbs of his blueberry muffin, spraying them embarrassingly across the table. One lands on the edge of Jon’s plate and his eyes flick down to it for one, mortifying moment, before they return, intently, to Martin’s red and wide eyed face.

“Sorry?”

“You know,” Jon twirls his hand in a circle as though it would aid his explanation. “As in the one true person that is meant for you to fall in love with, spend your life with, all that nonsense.”

 _Nonsense_ , Martin thinks with a lightheaded giddiness that has spots swimming in front of his eyes. Unless that’s the lack of air from the wheezing breaths he’s still taking around bits of poorly swallowed blueberries. He grabs for his glass of water and takes a sip to buy him some time.

“Where did this come from? Was there a statement a-about spooky love at first sight or something?”

“I do have a life outside of work, Martin,” Jon grumbles as though he has any right to be offended by that assumption when they both know for a fact he’s wearing the clothes he keeps folded up in the bottom drawer of his desk for when he pulls an all nighter at the Institute. Coming outside with Martin on their lunch breaks may be the only glimpse of the sun Jonathan Sims gets these days. Martin has been choosing a slightly farther restaurant each time he lures Jon out of the Archives. Give him a bit more of a walk in the fresh air. He could use it, his trouser legs hanging loose and ill-fitting, his thick-rimmed glasses no longer enough to obscure the darkened bruises opening like umbrellas beneath his eyes.

It’s not manipulative if he’s helping. And Martin is sure he’s helping.

“Right, so what brought this on, then?” Martin tries and fails to picture Jon sat on the couch watching soaps, or reading one of those cheesy paperbacks they sell at the pharmacy that Martin used to buy as a kid when he found some change lying about on the sidewalk.

“It’s just something I’ve been thinking about recently,” Jon evades, his eyes slipping to the side as he half-heartedly pokes at his eggs. “Do you think it’s real?”

“Probably not?” Martin answers with a shrug. Jon flicks his gaze back up to him, and it’s impossible to tell if he’s given the answer Jon wanted to hear. “I mean, it’d be nice? I wouldn’t mind if it was. But it sounds awful convenient and things don’t really tend to work out like that in real life, y’know?”

“Mm,” Jon agrees, tepidly, dropping his head back to his meal. “I don’t think it sounds very nice at all.”

“What, you _don’t_ want to find the one true person in the universe who’s meant for you and be in love forever and ever?” Martin can’t help the mocking skepticism in his voice. 

“No, I just mean, it is a very stress-inducing concept, don’t you think? This idea that there is only one person who could ever truly understand you, and if you don’t manage to find them out of seven billion odd humans running around the planet then you just have to be miserable forever.”

“Isn’t that life?” Martin pulls at the edges of his muffin wrapper, straightening out all the creases. “We never get to know for sure that there isn’t somewhere better we could be, something nicer we could be doing, someone we love more we could be doing it with. We just....have to accept uncertainty.”

“Uncertainty isn’t exactly appreciated in my line of work,” Jon says, and for a moment, Martin isn’t sure if he’s hallucinating the humor lacing through his tone.

“Jon, we investigate ghost stories for a living. Uncertainty _is_ our line of work.”

Jon’s expression darkens, and Martin finds his attention drawn again to the deep bags beneath his eyes, the exhaustion that writes itself through every wrinkle creased into his forehead. “I wish there was more I could be certain of,” he says.

“I don’t.” Jon looks up at Martin in surprise, so he barrels on recklessly. In for a penny, and all that. “It’s nice, isn’t it, not being certain. Like not knowing if someone is your soulmate. Because there’s something enjoyable in the time in between now and then. The space that has to be occupied with figuring it out. There’s a lot of things to be enjoyed during the in between.”

“Like eating subpar eggs at a breakfast shop a half hour walk from the Institute when we passed at least two better ones on the way?” Jon raises an eyebrow and this time, Martin is sure about hearing the laughter in his voice.

“You can’t live your life wondering if there’s something better you could have been doing, Jon,” Martin says with a grin that tells Jon he knows exactly the nuisance he’s being. 

“It’s hard to believe that you don’t have someone better to do it _with_ , though,” he answers with a sardonic attempt at self-debasement that has clearly gone unchallenged for too long in his life.

“Hey, I’m the one who invited you.” Martin folds his muffin wrapper into a tiny ball and lobs it at Jon and then immediately regrets it. They work together closely, sure, there’s only four of them in the archives so it’s hard to avoid bonding, but Jon isn’t exactly a joke around kind of boss, no matter how much Tim tries to force it. Which is less, these days. The wrapper bumps into Jon’s shoulder and falls to the ground. Martin braces for impact.

“I appreciate the invitation.” The muscles clenched in Martin’s chest relax in confusion at the smile on Jon’s face. It is a smile Martin has never seen before, soft and almost inward focused, and Martin wonders if Jon is even aware that it has bubbled up onto his face and stuck there. Martin tries and fails to stop staring. 

“I could use the sunlight,” Jon says with a laugh, and Martin knows in that moment that there’s nowhere else on earth he’d rather be.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! And Shana Tovah!
> 
> If you enjoyed this, you can come chat with me on tumblr [@apatheticbutterflies](https://apatheticbutterflies.tumblr.com/) I'm very friendly :D


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